Natalia
Veselnitskaya, who met with Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016, is
best known in the US for defending a Russian businessman accused
by the US government of laundering millions.Yury Martyanov/AP

MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met Donald Trump Jr. after his
father won the Republican nomination for the 2016 US presidential
election counted Russia's FSB security service among her clients
for years, Russian court documents seen by Reuters show.

The documents show that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya,
successfully represented the FSB's interests in a legal wrangle
over ownership of an upscale property in northwest Moscow from
2005 to 2013.

The FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB service, was headed
by Vladimir Putin before he became Russia's president.

There is no suggestion that Veselnitskaya is an employee of the
Russian government or intelligence services, and she has denied
having anything to do with the Kremlin.

But the fact she represented the FSB in a court case may raise
questions among some US politicians.

The Obama administration last year sanctioned the FSB for what it
said was its role in hacking the election, something Russia
flatly denies, and Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, has raised concerns about why
Veselnitskaya was allowed into the US at all.

Veselnitskaya did not reply to emailed Reuters questions about
her work for the FSB. The FSB did not respond to a request for
comment.

Reuters could not find a record of when and by whom the lawsuit —
which dates back to at least 2003 — was first lodged. But appeal
documents show that Rosimushchestvo, Russia's federal government
property agency, was involved. It did not immediately respond to
a request for comment.

Donald
Trump Jr. watching his father, Donald Trump, leaving the stage on
the night of the Iowa caucus in Des Moines.Jim Bourg/Reuters

A public list of Russian legal entities shows the FSB, Russia's
domestic intelligence agency, founded the military unit, whose
legal address is behind the FSB's own headquarters.

Reuters was unable to establish whether Veselnitskaya did any
other work for the FSB or confirm who now occupies the building
at the center of the case.

'Mass hysteria' over meeting

Donald Trump.Andrew
Harrer-Pool/Getty Images

President Donald Trump's eldest son eagerly agreed in June 2016
to meet Veselnitskaya, a woman he was told was a Russian
government lawyer who might have damaging information about
Democratic White House rival Hillary Clinton, according to emails
released by Trump Jr.

Veselnitskaya has said she is a private lawyer and has never
obtained damaging information about Clinton. Dmitry Peskov, a
spokesman for the Kremlin, has said she had "nothing whatsoever
to do with us."

Veselnitskaya has also said she is ready to testify to the US
Congress to dispel what she called "mass hysteria" about the
meeting with Trump Jr.

The case in which Veselnitskaya represented the FSB was complex;
appeals courts at least twice ruled in favor of private companies
the FSB wanted to evict.

The FSB took over the disputed office building in mid-2008, a
person who worked for Atos-Component, a firm that was evicted as
a result, told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

The building was privatized after the 1991 Soviet collapse, but
the Russian government said in the lawsuit in which Veselnitskaya
represented the FSB that the building had been illegally sold to
private firms.

The businesses were listed in the court documents, but many of
them no longer exist, and those that do are little-known firms in
the electric components business.

Elektronintorg, an electronic-components supplier, said on its
website that it occupied the building. Elektronintorg is owned by
the state conglomerate Rostec, run by Sergei Chemezov, who, like
Putin, worked for the KGB. He served with Putin in East Germany.

When contacted by phone, an unnamed Elektronintorg employee said
he was not obliged to speak with Reuters. Rostec did not
immediately respond to a request for comment.

When asked which organization was located there, an unidentified
man who answered a speakerphone at the main entrance laughed and
said: "Congratulations. Ask the city administration."